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William Stryker
Fictional Character Biography God loves, Man Kills Stryker is a religious fanatic, with a military history which involved the Weapon X project (the same project which results in Wolverine being given his adamantium skeleton). Stryker is characterized by his unequivocal hatred of mutants. So strong is this hatred that Stryker goes so far as to kill his own wife and mutant-born son immediately after his birth. Crazed and outraged, Stryker then makes a failed attempt at suicide. As time passes, he becomes convinced that Satan has a plot to destroy humankind by corrupting prenatal souls. The result of this corruption being mutants. Additionally, Stryker eventually comes to see the birth of his mutant son as a sign from God, directing him to his true calling: ensuring the eradication of all mutants. Driven by this newfound conviction, Stryker then becomes a popular-but-controversial preacher and televangelist. While his followers, including a secret paramilitary group called the Purifiers, commit hate crimes against mutants, Stryker arranges to have Professor X kidnapped, brainwashed, and attached to a machine that, using his brainpower, will kill all living mutants. In order to stop this scheme, the X-Men are forced to join forces with their nemesis, Magneto. When the extent of his bigotry becomes obvious—he attempts to kill Kitty Pryde in front of a television audience—one of his own security guards shoots and arrests him. God Loves, Man Kills 2 Stryker, who made no appearances until this storyline in X-treme X-Men, was assumed forgotten. This time, it was revealed that Stryker had been serving a prison sentence as a result of the events of his previous actions. Lady Deathstrike, a character with ties to the X-Men's Wolverine, made her way onto the airplane where Stryker was being transferred. Once there, she killed his guards and rescued him, where it was revealed that the two are lovers, and he immediately began a crusade against the X-Men, focusing on Wolverine, Cannonball, the X-treme X-Men team, and Shadowcat, against whom he apparently had a grudge. Stryker sent a group of followers against several of the X-Men, and kidnapped Kitty Pryde. Along the way, Kitty convinced Stryker that mutants were not an abomination, and he seemed to turn over a new leaf. Decimation He came back as a major player right at the start of the Decimation following Marvel's House of M event, deeming the sudden massive reduction in number of the mutant population a sign of God, saying "He made the first step and now we have to take the next", basically rallying for genocide on TV. With the help of Icarus, one of the Xavier Institute's students, he caused a bus to explode, killing about 1/4th of the depowered students from the academy. Then he planned the assassination of Wallflower, ordering one of his snipers to shoot her in the head. Next he tried to kill Dust, though X-23 foiled the attempt by dressing in Sooraya's cloths and taking the bullet herself. The deaths of Wallflower and Dust were Stryker's prime objectives, as he had been informed by Nimrod that both girls would be fundamental in the destruction of his army. Finally he attacked the institute with his "purifiers," killing Quill, leaving Onyxx and Cannonball critically wounded, and hurting Bishop, Emma Frost and other students. After Stryker's Purifiers were defeated, he was killed by the enraged boyfriend of Wallflower, Elixir. Second coming He is one of the Humans that Bastion revived with the Techno-organic virus. Bastion revealed that as the founder of the Purifiers, Stryker has the second highest number of mutant kills. He is surpassed only by Bolivar Trask, the founder of the Sentinels. Stryker is working with Bastion and fellow Anti-Mutant leaders, Graydon Creed, Bolivar Trask, and Steven Lang. He has re-assumed control of The Purifiers (now forged with the Sapien League). When Bastion locates Hope and Cable, he dispatches the Reverend and his Purifiers to eliminate them. They are intercepted by a group of X-Men. With the help of a "weaponized ritual" weapon, he is able to take Illyana Rasputin out of the fight, and she is then abducted by demons through one of her own stepping discs. He also temporarily neutralizes Nightcrawler's teleportation. With the X-Men unable to teleport at will, they are surrounded by the Purifiers. Sensing the battle has shifted and no longer in their favor, Wolverine instructs Angel to transform into his Archangel persona. He is able to quickly dispatch of the Purifiers, and kills Stryker by slicing him in half. Powers and Abilities Abilities Skilled soldier and military unit leader. Paraphernalia Equipment Implant capable of blocking Telepathy. Weapons Cybernetic right forearm, taken from a Nimrod Sentinel. Media X-Men Origins Stryker is in the film X-Men Origins: Wolverine, set roughly twenty years before X-Men, portrayed by Danny Huston. Huston liked the complex Stryker, who "both loves and hates mutants because his son was a mutant and drove his wife to suicide. So he understands what they're going through, but despises their destructive force." He compared the character to a racehorse breeder, who rears his mutant experiments like children but abandons them when something goes wrong. In the film, Stryker starts off as a Major trying to recruit Victor Creed and James Howlett to join Weapon X. While searching for a mysterious rock, Stryker threatens to kill civilians to garner information, causing Wolverine to leave the team. Through the years Stryker begins working with Creed and using Wade Wilson as Weapon XI. He tells Creed to kill all the other members of the team and to have Logan's girlfriend Kayla (Silver Fox) - an agent of Stryker's keeping an eye on Logan- fake her death. After Logan is left for dead by Victor, Col. Stryker persuades Logan to become Wolverine. The process is successful, and Stryker wants to use Logan's DNA for the XI, but Logan hears this and escapes. After General Munson tries to shut Weapon X down, learning of Stryker's son and believing that he is too emotionally close to the situation, Stryker kills him. Also Stryker kidnaps mutants, including a younger Cyclops (Tim Pocock) in order to pass their abilities into Weapon XI. The others escape with Kayla and Logan while Logan and Victor battle Weapon XI. Weapon XI is defeated, but Stryker shoots adamantium bullets in Logan's head, causing amnesia as a result of the damage done to his brain; although the physical injury can be healed from, the memories themselves are apparently permanently gone. He points the gun at Kayla but Kayla tells him by using her power of persuasion to walk until his feet bleed and then keep walking, refusing to order him to kill himself as that would make them no better than him. Stryker unwillingly does so, and is investigated at the end of the movie by military police in connection with General Munson's murder. He also started looking like he was in X2, gaining weight, having wrinkles, and more rugged features. Film-X2 The story prior to his recent reappearing formed the loose basis for the film, X2, which follows its basic premise, but also incorporates elements of the Dark Phoenix Saga, In this movie, William Stryker is the main antagonist, and played by Scottish actor Brian Cox. Stryker was slightly altered for his film interpretation in X2. He is no longer a religious extremist, but a military scientist who has gone into defense contracting. His connection to Wolverine is made more explicit, as is his motivation regarding his son. Also, rather than having killed his son, Jason (who himself is partially modeled after Mastermind, another X-Men foe), at birth, Stryker sent him to Xavier's school in hopes of curing him, regarding mutation as a disease that must be cured. Xavier had no interest or belief in 'curing' mutants, which angered Stryker. Additionally, Jason continued to grow angry, resentful, and vindictive towards his parents; he tortured them by planting illusions in their brains until his mother committed suicide by drilling into her own brain in order to "bore the images out." Stryker then gave his son a lobotomy to make him more docile. Jason, under his father's direction, brainwashes Xavier into using a reproduction of Cerebro to kill all mutants. Xavier and Magneto learned that Stryker is the mastermind behind an assassination attempt on the President by a brainwashed Nightcrawler. Magneto, wearing a helmet designed to shield against telepathic attacks, is able to reach Xavier while the X-Men are incapacitated by the psychic assault, but then has Jason make Xavier use Cerebro II to kill ordinary humans. At his direction, Mystique impersonates Stryker and instructs Jason of a change in plans, which Jason then communicates to the brainwashed Xavier. Magneto and Mystique escape, and soon thereafter Storm and Nightcrawler enter Cerebro II and disrupt Jason's illusion, allowing Xavier to break free from his control before any humans or mutants are killed. Stryker attempts to escape, but his attempts are foiled by Wolverine, then Magneto, and he is chained to a large block of debris. In his last moments, he confronts Wolverine about how he apparently volunteered to have the adamantium put in his skeleton, and asks him whether he would actually side with mutants (implying that Wolverine originally hated his mutation before his amnesia). Looking at the young mutant he was carrying to safety, a young boy with a lizard-like tongue (Artie Maddicks), Wolverine informs Stryker that he would "take his chances with him" and left him to die. As Wolverine walks away Stryker says to him that "one day someone will finish what I've started. One day!".Shortly after the dam broke and Stryker unable to free himself from the chains', drowned in the overwhelming amount of water. Category:Characters Category:Humans Category:Villains Category:Purifiers Category:Deceased Category:Male Characters